1897

I think back often to classes in college andhow I knew so little and John Poor knew somuch always bothered me. He told me howhe woke up once, I think he said all at once,to realize how little he knew and how muchthere was to know. Said he made up his mindto know it. He became a scholar. He lovedmusic much as many mathematicians do, andI feel sure that the rhythm and the wavelength of sound was a part of his joy inbringing to life the dream of the great musicalmasters with his own clear note.

As a monitor at the chapel door, if PoddyParker seemed a bit winded, he held back a little so that jolly roly-poly Poddy who needed the marks could squeeze in. His ways in college and mine didn't cross much, but in the years after college I got to know him very well and saw him often in Hanover. It was lots of fun to draw him out on the philosophy of the "howmuchness" of the stars, at al. Inviting John one time to my small room at the Inn, opening a bottle as he came in, bringing with him "Stought," the "pseudo-Heinie" of the college staff sometime back but at this time a stock broker in New York, gave me a memory picture of John halfreclining on the bed, "Stought" with a golf club trying to show us a new golf stroke (John didn't care—l did). The stroke being his own invention required long explanation. The room being small I had fears or rather hopes he would knock out the panel of the door to another guestroom adjoining with his follow-through stroke. I have often thought of the picture of John on the bed, glass in hand, me holding "Stought's" glass and my own, while he swung and explained speed and control of the shot, the bottle of Green River on the small table, completing the picture. While "Stought" was swinging and talking to himself and the club and to me, I had a chance to get from John the most concise summation of the universe and what it's all about that I've ever heard. I asked him a number of pointed questions about the whole of things, getting a little away from Dr. Bartlett's teaching of the six-day job from the Genesis account of creating the earth and the firmament and turning on the lights in six working days, hours not stated. While "Stought,' about half-way through his second round, came nearer and nearer to the door panel, John revealed to me this philosophy, all in very few sentences. These are his exact words: "The compila- tion of the measurements of the parallax of the double stars would seem to indicate that all stellar matter had a movement in a preferential direction." My question, "Which direction?" His answer, "Down the milky way." "How fast?" His answer, "Seventeen miles a second." "What s back of us?" His answer, "The factory."

"What's out ahead?" "The dump." While I was writing this down by word on my cuff, "Stought" sat down saying "Das genug." The door panel was saved and all three of us talked about other things—the college mostly.

At another time John tried to be simple and tell me on one of my visits to his house about the Einstein theory of curvature of space, and if I remember right, time too. Maybe time was not bent like space but something happened to time along with matter and space. I tried hard to think about the momentum of all stellar matter when it got to that road sign marked curve ahead, thinking some of it might slew a little and cause a road jam—perhaps the bending of time, if it does bend, may have helped the speedsters to keep on all fours. John tried and I feel better about Einstein, but still don't see clearly yet how he got the atom busted by knowing that the skyways are curved. I told John that if he would come down from where he was talking to the underside of quantums, I thought I could get it a little better. He did this and I felt that it was a little on the order of gradient curves in railroad work to get around the corners of bad ledges without wearing rails or wheel flanges too much. I think it was about this time that Mrs. Poor shut the door to the room to let us talk it out. I smelt supper cooking and gave up further studies at that time—that's probably why I'm still so ignorant.

When John came back from his sabbatical in Norway, he came to visit me at Newton Centre. He had a gift for me from the north country, a quart of "Svenska punch." Elizabeth, after the usual courtesies, diplomatically excused herself to finish a book upstairs with the door shut. John and I with glasses and ice sat down on the rug by the fire to talk about the long nights and more time to snoop on the high jinks of the stars. John said he learned several things. First he said was that he would starve if he didn't pay heed to the smorgasbord. He said also his observations convinced him that the demand for alcohol varies inversely as the distance from the pole. John, with the long nights and parallax and association with some of the best stargazers, progressed onto solid ground of thinking. He summed it up this way for me. He said, "You know when I was in Princeton, the formulations of Prof. Young, one of the great astronomers with whom I was studying and others of his time, all good ones, were taken for fact by every astronomer in the world and now 25 years later not one of their theories is accepted any more anywhere." Asking him how come, he said, "the only thing we now is that we know nothing." I think the feeling that was creeping into his mind was that the atom badboy was hiding around the corner of learning and doubt was all there, was till his habits were known. In his honest doubts, he said to me, "the teaching of Genesis is just as safe a bet as any." I think John could feel the things that were coming, and I believe he was atom-minded in his very late years. I think his idea of the factory back of us and the dump out ahead was in harmony with the now explosive atom story which we get little hints of in the various branches of the new science. I believe that I could see a change in his feelings about the universe after he came back from Norway. I like to recall my sitting at John's feet and trying to get the feel of the great thought waves which the scholars of our time were picking up. It.is the same in science at it is in mechanics—a good ways further from pretty near to just right, "than it is from pig iron to pretty near.

One more little picture of the scholar at work. I was designing a big machine shop and had to light the whole floor, using very large vertical saw-tooth roof sky lights. I had a choice of northwest or southeast facing of these windows, and was puzzling it out for best lighting from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. John came to see me at my office and I said I had a problem for him. He asked me three questions—working hours, latitude, and longitude. Then he asked for paper. I gave him a big pad and cleared a part of my big table. He began to compute while I studied brackets to carry 20-ton crane loads. John soon had a page of figures and started the next page. I soon saw it wasn't a simple case of flipping a coin and tell the draftsman northwest if it came down tails. I began to think John had found some important variable that would make a wrong decision bad for the older men with glasses getting reflection from behind or perhaps too much heat from the sun in the afternoon—perhaps the bright steel cut with sharp tool and tool shadows was in my mind, as page after page began to pile up, all covered with figures. If I got this right, I felt sure no other engineer would get a similar one right, for the same reason that John was going to give me, seeing all those pages of figures. Well, his summation came at last and his answer was that facing southeast I would have more haze, and less light and northwest I would have more thunder heads and less haze. It, looked like a pretty close decision to John and I said I vote northwest. He said o.k. I pushed the buzzer for my head draftsman and said, "face them northwest" and to John I said, "Let's go to lunch." I kept the papers for a longtime and told my client that I had studied it all out with an astronomer. He laughed.

When we started to organize a corporation called "Parallax Limited" for the., support of John's department of astronomy and the stock seemed to be selling very well, our class dinner was announced. In the middle of the dinner a cop came in and asked if John Poor was in the room. John thought his house must be afire but was told that it was a warrant for his arrest for putting a phony stock on the market. John said that he felt a bit humiliated by being made conspicuous at the Inn. He survived the humiliation and came closer to every classmate as a result of the organization of "Parallax Limited." I still have some of the stock on option—perhaps "Sport" Morse would like to trade it for me.

"JOHNNY" POOR '97

Secretary and Treasurer

886 Main St., Bridgeport 3, Conn.

Class Agent, 862 Park Sq. Bldg., Boston 16, Mass.